Spotted owl population drops sharply

Updated 10:00 pm, Monday, September 29, 2003

OLYMPIA -- Washington's population of northern spotted owls has declined sharply, despite a 15-year recovery effort that reshaped forest management at a cost of thousands of timber-industry jobs.

In 1990, the owl was listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, prompting the Clinton administration to declare millions of acres of federal forestland -- including 2.4 million acres of old-growth forest in Washington state -- off limits under the Northwest Forest Plan.

But the latest population studies on the Olympic Peninsula and in the central Cascade Range show owl numbers down 50 percent to 60 percent over the past 10 years.

On the Olympic Peninsula, severe winter storms in 1998-99 apparently wiped out a number of the owls. In the following two years, almost none of the owls had chicks, according to research led by Oregon State University biologist Eric Forsman, whose work since the 1970s makes him the owl expert of the Northwest.

"There's no place the owl population is doing worse than in Washington state," said Dave Werntz, science director for the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance. "It's teetering on the brink."

The studies Forsman led in 2002 showed that 38 percent of the 92 owl territories surveyed on the Olympic Peninsula supported owl pairs -- about half as many as were occupied from 1987 to 1992.

In the Cle Elum area, a mixture of federal, state and private forestland, the number of spotted owls found has dropped from 120 in 1992 to 44 last year.

Forest activists argue that owl protection on 10 million acres of state and private land is inadequate, and too much timber is being cut.

"It's very, very well-known that state wildlife rules are behind the times," said Peter Goldman of the Washington Forest Law Center in Seattle, a nonprofit public interest law firm.

"They are in desperate need of revision."

But habitat isn't the only issue. The barred owl, a relative newcomer to the forests of the Northwest, also appears to be raising havoc with the spotted owl, competing for its habit, eating some of the same prey, and perhaps even killing spotted owls.

Field researchers reported seeing 62 barred owls in the 2002 study, which suggests they now might outnumber spotted owls.

"It's habitat loss that drove the spotted owl population down," said state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Joe Buchanan. "Now other factors are kicking in -- the barred owl, forest fires, insects and diseases in forest stands, maybe even the West Nile virus."